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Lawrence S. Bacow

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Professor Emeritus

Lawrence S. Bacow served as President of Tufts University from 2001-2011. Prior to that, he was Chancellor of MIT (1998-2001) and Chair of the MIT Faculty.

Dr. Bacow majored in economics as an undergraduate at MIT, then earned a law degree and a PhD in public policy at Harvard. Upon completion of graduate school in 1977, he returned to MIT to teach in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, becoming the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies. He was the co-founder and first Director of MIT's Center for Real Estate.

As Chancellor of MIT, he had oversight of undergraduate and graduate education, student life, admissions, financial aid, athletics, campus planning, and MIT's large scale institutional partnerships both industrial and international. He also played a major role in structuring MIT's partnership with Cambridge University in England, and chaired the Institute's Council on the Environment.

He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and retains the title of President Emeritus at Tufts University. He served for three years as President-in-Residence in the Higher Education Program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, and is currently the Hauser Leader-in-Residence at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School.